5. General Conclusions and Summaries. §7 



positively male. Thus if an infected female crab, for instance, were to develope either swollen 

 chelae or copulatory styles, it would be necessary to give up our view, but it appears most 

 strikingly and emphatically that this is never the case. Giard (1) has recognised this fact in 

 Stenorkt/nchus, where he found infected individuals of the type described in this chapter as 

 crabs of apparently doubtful sex, i. e. individuals of totally female appearence but possessing 

 copulatory styles; these individuals he identihed as highly modified males, as I do. But in 

 other cases he appears to believe that the female sex may assume male characters, as for in- 

 stance in Andrena infected by Stylops where he says "Chacun des sexes perd ainsi plus ou 

 moins les attributs qui le caracterisent et tend a acquerir plus ou moins ceux du sexe oppose" 

 (2 p. 15). The effect of the fungus Ustilago on certain kinds of Melandrvum, has been also 

 adduced by Giard (6) as an instance of parasitic castration, in which the male characters 

 are called forth in a female plant. This botanical case, however, differs essentially from all 

 other cases of parasitic castration, and it is probable that we are dealing with a different 

 order of phenomena. The following particulars are taken from Strasburger (14). The so- 

 called female flower of Melandrium already possesses the rudiments of the male organization 

 as small hooks. These hooks normally do not develope, but when the flower is attacked by 

 Ustilago, the latter is particularly concentrated in the hooks which, probably in consequence 

 of the stimulus, proceed to develope into normal anthers. The anthers however never get 

 beyond producing the pollen mother cells, which are then destroyed by the fungus. In con- 

 sequence of the development of the anther rudiments the female organization may atrophy 

 to a certain extent. It is clear, I think, that the resemblance of this process to the parasitic 

 castration of animals is quite spurious. The development of the rudimentary anthers is due 

 to a local stimulus given by the Ustilago, and in any case it cannot be compared to a female 

 animal giving rise to male characters, because the flower of Melandrium is potentially herma- 

 phrodite already since it possesses the rudiments of anthers. 



From the fact that Giard adduces this case and from his general language, I conclude 

 that he holds the view that there is no essential difference in the reaction of male and female 

 animals under parasitic castration, and that the female can assume male characters in the 

 same way that males can assume female characters. 



The common view 1 ) of hermaphroditism as being derived from the male or female in- 

 differently, according as the hermaphrodite resembles more closely one sex or the other, is 

 proved to be utterly fallacious, since we know that a male crab may assume all the attributes 

 of the female and only retain a copulatory style in a more or less degenerate state. 



So striking is the apparent incapacity of the female crabs to assume a single distinctively 

 male character, that I am tempted to think that the female sex in general really does not possess 

 the male modification of the sexual formative substance in a latent state, whereas the male 

 evidently does possess the female. The question, therefore, naturally arises if this conception 



l ) This view is so widely spread in biological literature that I need not give special references. In view 

 of the facts given in this chapter it is seen to be altogether inadequate and uncritical. 



